"Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince" by J. K. Rowling

Written by J.K Rowling and released summer of 2005. This is the 6th Harry Potter book so far. The book starts off with Harry sitting in his room in the house of his Uncle and Aunt. He hates this place, he longs to go to Hogwart’s, the magical school he attends to when not on vacation. He’s waiting for someone, Headmaster Dumbledore to meet him. Harry doesn’t really trust that the Headmaster will show up so he hasn’t even packed his bags properly yet.

The start actually says a good deal about how Harry feels he’s been treated throughout the years. A bit neglected, ignored maybe. In the wizarding world Harry is only known as the boy that survived an attack from the Dark Lord, Voldemort. Ever since he survived the spell that should have been fatal, The Dark Lord has been wanting to get to Harry and show the world who is more powerful. In this book Harry goes to school after a two weeks stay at his best friend Ron. Where he also meets up with Hermione, a particularly smart young witch with skills beyond her age.

They set of to Hogwart’s for their 6th term(seven in total), with the knowledge it’s gonna be alot of hard work and they have exams and alike aswell. They find their timetables and subjects like, Divination, Potions, Defense against Dark Arts, Herbology are perfectly normal. Harry, who has always been skilled within Defense agains the Dark Arts isn’t looking forward to this year’s Defense agains Dark Arts classes, his least favourite teacher, Severus Snape is teaching it this year. Snape is known to have been a servant of The Dark Lord and Harry does not trust him for a penny. Snape likewise hates Harry, adding to Harry’s misery. But Harry discovers something new in his class, Potions, a worn out book he uses contains perfect descriptions on how to brew potions in world class. He therefore gets liked by the new teacher Slughorn, but what is with this book? The person that has written in it calls himself “The Half Blood Prince”. Who is the Half Blood Prince?

To me the theme of the book is lojalty, love, and hate. Harry stribes with all of these issues throughout the book. Its really a good versus bad type of story aswell. J.K Rowling’s amazing writing makes you really relate to the issues in the book and they’re very detailed.

The characters in the book are many, which is to me one of the downsides too it, i can get confused with all the names as every book some new people add to the mix. The main character is of course Harry Potter, a boy who has some issues from before with his parents getting murdered at a young age. He’s always been branded with being “The one that survived the Dark Lord’s attack”. Harry doesn’t feel comfortable with it either. His best friend Ron always tries to be supportive with Harry but they often quarrel amongst themselves. He also has Hermione, a very clever friend of his. She is smart, full of knowledge, and always goes by rules. Something that Harry and Ron can have problems following her on. The Headmaster of the school Hogwart’s, Albus Dumbledore is one of Harry’s favourite people. He’s one of the most powerful wizards in the world and he’s got intelligence and wisdom way beyond any other. I think Harry sees him as a sort of a father figure. Harry feels safe around him. Lord Voldemort, The Dark Lord, the one that tried to murder Harry 16 years ago but failed due to Harry’s parents sacrificing themselves for him. He is the bad guy in the story, but the strange thing is. He and Harry share so much in common, their strong skill in Dark Arts, their ability to talk to snakes(parsel tongue) and many more. What is this connection between them?

The book is very exciting, its over the years grown more and more adult in its ways. The themes are more serious, people die and Harry discovers the world of girls. In my opinion, the best Harry Potter book and a very good all over book. It really fits for most, maybe not the youngest. I’d say people 14-15 plus can get alot out of this book and will enjoy reading it. My sister liked it, my mom liked it, and i liked it. That should say it all. Extremely strong book by one of the worlds leading authors.